The Pokémon's Guide to the Galaxy
by electricpants
Summary: A terrible, stupid disaster happens to the homeworld of the Charizard evolution line, Rafad of Samh of Upsilon Andromedae A. Survivors are in the single digits; all rescued by friends that were secretly aliens. This is the story of one of three such pairs, a charmeleon girl named Vassa and a Zoroark boy named Kaleek. Will they get revenge? Will Vassa recover mentally? Who knows.
1. Chapter 1

**So I'm doing this again :/**

 **This is, obviously, as you can tell, a rip-off of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", a really good book by Douglas Adams. You should read it if you haven't yet.**

 **Seriously, though, this takes heavy inspiration from that book.**

 **Yeah.**

 **Also sorry if they sound like basically humans, there wasn't exactly a need to put in words to make them... well, not human. Just know that they aren't, those describing things will come in next chapter.**

 **Also also, each technological-age pokémon is from its own solar system (each is an alien to another, some are more advanced than others as well)**

 **And also there's no random 'send me an OC' thing.**

 **So without further ado, have this thing I made:**

A Charmeleon wearing a black hoodie, pink shorts, and a backpack was hiking with her friend. As anyone on the moon of Rafad, orbiting Samh around what we call Upsilon Andromedae would know, the Charizard species are the only lifeforms that are technologically advanced.

Well, I mean they aren't, but they haven't found aliens yet. The Charmeleon, named Vassa, was hiking with her friend. I've said that already. This friend was, however, of a species known as the ' _Zoroarks'_ from the planet Rahm orbiting Alpha Centauri B. Of course, Vassa nor anybody else on Rafad had any idea about this. The Zoroark-but-in-disguise was named Kaleek.

"Nice day outside, huh?" Vassa asked.

It was, of course, a nice day. For her, at least, since members of the Charizard species are used to the _60* Celcius_ temperature. For Kaleek it was almost unbearably hot, but he'd built a tolerance over his 5-year research stay on the moon.

"Yeah, _pretty_ hot though," Kaleek responded, looking at Vassa for a second.

"Heh, it's pretty funny, seeing a Charmeleon not tolerating heat," Vassa replied, laughing a little. "Remind me again why you decided to take me on a hike so... _suddenly_?"

Kaleek looked around, seeing if anyone was nearby.

There was, of course, nobody nearby.

He looked back at her. "Would you believe me if I said... that the world was going to end?"

Kaleek had always been kind of odd, at least to the rest of Rafad. A bit eccentric, but there was something besides that that nobody could _quite_ put their finger on. Maybe it was how he would sometimes forget words just a little too often, or how he would sometimes use strange terms nobody had ever heard of before, and when asked would just say it was something made up. However, despite this, he was generally accepted by his friends, and especially by Vassa.

"Is this another one of your 'weird moments'?" Vassa asked, smiling.

"...In 5 minutes." Kaleek replied, not smiling, not with any emotion on his face, really. "Listen, okay, this might be hard for you to believe. Impossible, maybe."

"Uh, okay...?" Vassa replied, now listening intently as she was interested in what he had to say.

"I'm from a place a long way away from here," Kaleek told her. "Like, _not on this moon_ far away. I'm from what you would call the Kallajad System; the third planet around it."

Vassa didn't say anything and had a strange look on her face.

"Yeah, yeah, you don't believe me," Kaleek said in response. "But really, the world's gonna end in another 3 minutes. The Gengars, from Sgyrjysa, are going to bomb the _hell_ out this world and probably kill off _any_ survivors. They're in an interstellar war and don't want any up-and-coming aliens with space travel to go against them."

Vassa laughed. "You're really funny sometimes, ya know?"

And yet as she laughed several very large, black conical cigar shapes descended, quiet as nothingness itself. Nobody heard it. Not one of the many Charizards in a diner on the other side of Rafad, not a group making their way up the tallest mountain, not a Charizard preparing to scuba dive, nobody.

It took a few minutes before they hit the cloud layer and were visible, but oh boy did the Charizards across the world notice them. Everyone across the moon froze, not knowing what to do. Nobody knew how to react to the Gengars from the fourth planet of what we'd call TRAPPIST-1 invading their moon.

Back to Vassa and Kaleek, however, as a booming message was broadcast. It reverberated across every metal surface, seeped through cracks in wooden and brick houses, passed almost straight through apartment buildings.

 _ **"Hello, people of the moon of Rafad. We have come from another star to destroy you guys since you seem pretty likely to become an interstellar star nation. As you may know, we are in the midst of a large-scale war, and don't want you guys to join in against us."**_

Vassa now _very_ much believed Kaleek, as the ships he'd 'predicted' had come. To add to it, he changed back into his normal form, a grey fox-like creature with long, flowing red and black hair.

Some response had obviously been transmitted, but nobody heard. The only evidence of this response was a reply from the Gengar ships.

 _ **"Oh, are you serious? 'We HaD nO iDeA aLiEnS eXiStEd!' are you kidding me?! Have you even tried looking for aliens, once, ever?! Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore, at least for you. Bombs away, and farewell citizens of Rafad! Nothing personal."**_

"Well, do you believe me _now_?" Kaleek asked, panicked.

"Yes! I do believe you!" Vassa replied. "Do you know a way out of this?"

Kaleek looked up and saw the faintest hint of a glistening object.

"Yeah, I do, actually." Kaleek then responded, his panic had dipped just a bit. "Our ride should be here _any_ minute now."

An extremely loud boom was heard not too far away, a mushroom cloud visible soon afterward.

Kaleek then checked his watch, before shouting again, once again extremely panicked. Vassa had always thought it a weird watch, as it could do a lot of things most smartwatches couldn't do and had a brand name she couldn't recognize or even read.

"They're only 10 seconds away!"

A whistling sound could then be heard, at least to them, as one of the dropped bombs approached. It continued to fall faster and faster as the timer went down.

"They're here! They're here now!" Kaleek then yelled, his panic hitting and then breaking a ceiling. He pressed a button on his watch. "Hold on-"


	2. Chapter 2

Vassa awoke suddenly. She then began hacking up a lung.

It took a little bit, but once her coughing fit wasn't as bad, she looked around.

It was pitch black, and she felt like she was sitting on cold, hard metal. The room was so dark she couldn't see the walls even with her tail flame, making the room feel almost as if it stretched on forever. It did not, of course.

As she attempted to walk over to where a wall might be, she heard a voice.

"Hey, hey, Vassa." The voice told her. "Stop, sit back down. You haven't been transported before, so the process probably took a bit of a toll on your body. It'll get better the more you do it, though."

Vassa was surprised, but laughed a little and flopped back down on the ground. "You startled me, Kaleek."

The lights then suddenly turned on, flooding the room with a brilliant white light. Vassa felt as if she was blinded, having gotten used to the darkness.

Once her eyes had adjusted, she looked around the bright room.

There was... nobody there?

"...Kaleek?" Vassa asked, now slightly worried. "Kaleek?"

...

No response.

" _Kaleek?!_ " She yelled, now worried. She swore she'd heard his voice but couldn't see him.

...

No response again.

Vassa was about to yell his name again, but out of nowhere he reappeared and started laughing.

"Ha... ha... oh boy the _look_ on your face!" Kaleek said before laughing again, his grey-furred chest rising and falling.

Vassa got pretty annoyed, a common trait amongst charmeleons, generally teens, like herself had. "Oh shut up! You really had me worried there you _prick_!"

Kaleek slowly stopped laughing. "Heh, sorry about that."

"Sorry for yelling," Vassa apologized back. "But now isn't really the time for jokes. Y'know, with the end of my world and _everything_ I know happening _right now_."

"Yeah..." Kaleek replied. "Sorry. I still thought that was very funny, though."

"Of course you did."

Just as Kaleek was about to respond, a voice came over some kind of loudspeaker.

 **"Hey, travelers."** The loudspeaker voice, different from simply 'the voice' at the beginning of the chapter, said. **"We picked up your signal and picked you up, as you can probably tell. Right in time, too, if we'd been a second later you'd have been blown to smithereens. We'll come and show you around the ship in just a minute."**

Then there was a short, sharp click and the voice stopped.

Now that she'd been given a little bit, Vassa began to think. _Jeez._ She thought. _Everything. Just... gone. Like that. Everyone I've loved or cared about is dead. Every artificial monument I've visited or wanted to visit is gone._

As she continued, a door in the room opened.

On the other side of the door stood yet another species of alien that Vassa had never seen or heard of before.

It looked like some kind of bird, bipedal, and with red and beige feathers. Their feet were surrounded with thick yellow feathers as well. They were relatively skinny, but not as skinny as Kaleek, and had a red face with a thin v-shape above their yellow eyes. Their hands were brown and claw-like as well.

"There you are-" The alien looked surprised to see me. "...I see you've brought a primitive guest from that there dying moon."

Kaleek nodded. "Her name's Vassa, and I'm Kaleek. Her species gets angry _pretty_ easily so I wouldn't call her 'primitive' in her face."

The alien nodded slowly as well, before turning to leave. "Alright then. Come, I'll show you around."

So the two followed this alien, who was actually called a 'Blaziken', but Vassa had no idea of this yet. Fortunately for her, she was about to find that out.

"Who are they?" Vassa whispered to Kaleek as they were led down the hallway.

Kaleek rolled his eyes in an exaggerated way. "That's a _Blaziken_ , for your information."

Just then, the Blaziken stopped, before pointing to a door. "That's the crew quarters. _Don't_ go in there, it says _crew_ quarters, and you aren't crew. There are hitchhiking quarters, though." They said before pointing to a door on the opposite side. The 'Hitchhiking' part was underlined several times in black permanent marker.

If I continue on like this it'll take forever, so I'll just summarize it all.

The Blaziken led the two across the ship, showing them the showers, the canteen, the bridge, and many other rooms. Most of them were, unfortunately, off-limits to the two. It's not really like they would want to visit those rooms anyway since most were boring-sounding.

Vassa and Kaleek then made their way _all_ the way back to the hitchhiking quarters. Kaleel wasn't very tired and honestly was quite relieved to not have to deal with the heat of Rafad any longer.

Vassa, however, continued dwelling on Rafad as she went to the bunk bed Kaleek was on. Since he had chosen the top, she took the bottom bunk and fell asleep. Consciousness soon slipped away from her for the second time that day, and she began to dream.

 _"Surprise!" Several of Vassa's relatives shouted as she walked through the door to her house._

 _That day was her 10th birthday, a Thursday. Coincidentally the same day that terrible, stupid disaster occurred on Rafad 5 years later._

 _She was... well, surprised, but was feeling very happy for herself._

 _Her father walked up to her and lifted her up to hug her. "My girl's ten years old! You're 10 now, Vassa!"_

 _Vassa laughed and kissed her father on the end of his snout._

 _He put her down, and Vassa ran over to her younger brother and their cousins. They began playing several child games, such as tag or hide-and-seek._

 _Soon after, she was sitting down at the end of a long wooden table, with her family and relatives sitting on the sides and opposite end of the table. There was the equivalent of a cake with wax candles in front of her._

 _They began singing a birthday song, coincidentally the same one humans sing to their children on their birthday. When they had finished Vassa attempted to blow out the candles, but accidentally breathed fire and made the candles burn hotter._

 _She only just became a charmeleon and was having trouble with this. However, she just laughed it off and blew again, this time correctly, and blew out the candles._


	3. Chapter 3

Vassa had stopped dreaming after a little while.

Eventually, she felt something shaking her lightly.

She didn't want to be awoken by anyone though. She just wanted to be in the comfort of her sleep so she wouldn't have to pay attention to the fact that her entire life had just changed. Like, changed radically.

The person or whatever shaking her whispered something, but Vassa couldn't hear. It's not exactly like she wanted to hear it anyway.

She heard what sounded like a sigh, and then she woke up with a start.

"Did you just _slap_ me?" Vassa asked Kaleek, who was sitting beside her cross-legged.

"Well you weren't waking up earlier," Kaleek replied with a shrug. "Anyways, we're here now."

Vassa groaned. "Well, where is 'here' right now?"

"Well when I sent out the signal, part of that was basically saying 'Hey take me back to my homeworld'," Kaleek explained. "So we're here now, in the Kijrati system around my homeworld, Nonsu."

He pointed out of a porthole that was in the room, out to a planet with dark blue lowlands and tannish highlands, as well as several large seas. It was one of the smallest and furthest out of the planets of what we'd call 'Kepler-186', what we'd call 'Kepler-186f'.

"It's just a pitstop for now. We'll go to the surface until the other guys I've called get here, which should be in a couple of hours." Kaleek finished before touching something on the screen of his... watch thing.

The two reappeared in some kind of field, Kijrati high in the sky at the moment.

Vassa again had a bit of a coughing fit on the ground, but soon tried getting up.

As it turns out she wasn't exactly ready for that and fell back down on her butt. However, a few seconds later Keleek held out his red-clawed hand and helped her up.

"Is this where you live?" Vassa then asked.

"Used to," Kaleek replied. "It's still my house though. Don't worry, I'm not intruding or anything."

He then began walking over to the house that has been referenced, which was only a little ways away. It was rather small and quaint, and may or may not have been painted red. It was hard to tell since everything had a slight red tinge to it.

Vassa followed, and soon they were inside, having stepped inside the house.

Kaleek flipped on a nearby light switch to reveal that the house was indeed small. It had like 3 rooms. It was also pretty damn dusty, considering nobody had been there for 5 years nor had anybody touched anything in that time.

"Well, here we are," Kaleek said, feeling quite relaxed since he had finally returned to his home. "There's food in the pantry if you want. Also, considering that those are the _only_ clothes you own now, you can borrow some of mine."

Vassa nodded, and then realized something. "...Where are the packs we brought on the hiking trip?"

Kaleek chuckled a bit, throwing a wrapper of some candy bar into the trashcan. "I brought 'em back down here. They're in the living room, you _just_ passed them."

She looked back and saw the packs. "...Oh."

Vassa then walked into the third room, finding a small area that had a washer, dryer, and some cupboards. They were filled with clothes, as you can obviously tell. Although Kaleek had been wearing only some sweatpants and a white tank top, the cabinets were filled with many different kinds of clothing. Leather jackets, jeans, more sweatpants, more tank tops in many colors, hoodies, underwear, et cetera items.

She closed the door and took several items of clothing and changed into some that she liked.

A few minutes later she came out with many different sets of clothes rolled up under her right arm, and a black tank top and dark blue cargo pants on.

"I look _so_ cool, right?" Vassa asked Kaleek humorously.

"Heh, you do actually look good in those," Kaleek responded, smiling. "By the way, our ride will be here in about 3 hours."

Vassa nodded, and she stuffed all the clothes into her pack. It was probably on the verge of breaking, but for now was fine. When she finished she got several foodstuffs from the pantry and also shoving them in another compartment of the pack.

She was hungry but didn't exactly feel like eating at that moment. She really just wanted to go back to sleep.

"I'm going to go back to sleep. Wake me up when your little buddies get here." Vassa told him from across the room. Then she flopped down on the large couch in the center of the living room, not even waiting for Kaleek to respond, and quickly fell asleep.

 _Vassa was having a lot of fun, swinging on swings and going down slides. She was 8 years old and was at the park._

 _Of course, these actions would seem boring and repetitive to an adult or teenager like Vassa was then, but to her 8-year-old self, it was, again, a lot of fun._

 _She decided that she would try to flip all the way around on one of the pole swings, knowing that it would not be a great idea on a normal chain swing._

 _So, without telling her parents of her plan, she ran over and got onto one of the pole swings. She kicked off and slowly began to go higher and higher. Eventually, as she was falling back down, she gathered enough speed to finally go all the way around in a wide arc._

 _Her heart beat fast, and she became very scared. After it once again began to fall back down she slowed it so it would not go all the way around again._

 _Eventually, she got off and ran over to her parents, shaken by the experience. Her dad laughed a bit before crouching down to comfort her._

 _..._

 _The dream slowly faded to nothing._

Once again, Vassa was sleeping but not dreaming.

Also once again, she felt a hard shake and awoke.

"Wha-" Vassa began to mumble, still quite tired, before remembering why she would have to be awoken by Kaleek. "Oh. They're here now?"

"Not yet, but they'll be here within the minute, so get your stuff," Kaleek replied.

So Vassa slowly got up and picked up her now very heavy and large pack. Although it was heavier than she had expected, she still put the straps over her shoulders.

Kaleek then led her out of his home, leaving the door open. They walked out a few meters before Kaleek stopped and looked back at his home longingly for a few moments.

"Oh, they're here now." He said before once again pressing something on the screen of his watch thing.

Vassa, now having experienced 3 transportations, had grown slightly used to it. Well, at least she didn't go into a coughing fit that time. Her legs were still slightly weak, however, so Kaleek helped her to her feet again.

"We're just getting dropped off to my personal ship, just in orbit of Ilitiberan (what us humans call 'Kepler-186e'). It'll only take a couple seconds, so just hold on to something," Kaleek told Vassa.

The two held on to different things bolted to the sides of the ship, and then a loud popping sound could be heard. As they entered hyperspace, they felt as if they were melting. It was rather disturbing.

Then, as Kaleek had said, it stopped a few seconds later. Kaleek and Vassa were fine, no melting having actually occurred.

Vassa was just about to let go before Kaleek looked at her in a way that said: "Not right now."

The ship turned in several different directions and sped up and slowed down over several minutes. This also ended up turning Vassa's stomach.

Once that had finished, a hatch opened up in the floor. Kaleek nodded, which basically said "Alright, you can let go now," and "Follow me," at the same time. So, after Kaleek had jumped down the hatch she followed after, jumping down as well.

She ended up inside a rather large cockpit, Kaleek already being strapped into the pilot seat.

After the hatch had closed and a small yet loud booming sound was heard, Kaleek said "Well then. You can put your... uh... surprisingly big pack down if you want."

"Alright then?" Vassa replied, slightly confused at Kaleek's plan. She put her pack down directly behind the copilot seat before sitting in it herself. "What's your plan of action?"

"Well, considering your planet was destroyed..." Kaleek began to answer. "...I was thinking that maybe a big, long cruise around the galaxy would help to calm you down."

Vassa was about to be angry, very angry. _Are you kidding?!_ She thought. _That's the best you can do?!_ However, she began thinking. _Well, then again, it's not exactly like he can do anything else. And the cruise would give him a whole lot of time to help comfort me..._ She thought, changing her mind.

"...That does actually sound pretty alright." Vassa decided to reply. "Where are we heading?"

He smiled. "Well, there is a place we could go. There's this _really_ cool planet, third around Sidaelius (what us humans call 'LHS 1140'). It's got a lot of huge, bioluminescent plants, and I think you'd like it."


	4. Chapter 4

Kaleek awoke with a start, still strapped into his pilot's seat.

He looked over and saw that Vassa had also been awoken.

He wondered what woke them up, before realizing a blaring alarm he'd set was going off. Not like an 'oh hey there's a dangerous thing happening' alarm but a ' _WAKE UP %* &$!_' alarm.

He pressed a button on the monitor the alarm was coming from, and it turned off.

"You _had_ to set an alarm," Vassa asked, clearly a bit annoyed by the sudden noise.

"Well, yeah," Kaleek replied. "I'd rather get to the surface sooner than later, I guess."

"Are we gonna have to do this for _every_ long journey?" Vassa asked, not wanting to be constantly woken up by blaring alarms.

"I mean, unless you'd like to feel like you're melting for several hours, then yeah."

She huffed and rolled her eyes in an overdramatically exaggerated way.

"Well let's go then!" Kaleek told her, excited. "We'll only be there for a little bit since it's almost sunset where we're 'landing'."

"Oh great, hacking fits. I _love_ those," Vassa complained.

The two then unbuckled their seatbelts, and Kaleek was followed by Vassa back to the center of the small ship.

"Get ready!"

The two were then transported to the surface of the planet.

Kaleek was excited, as it was even greater than he'd imagined it to be. The area was surrounded by low, gently rolling hills covered in thick, tall blue grass with white flowers. The landing spot was relatively clear of the grass, however.

As he continued to look, he saw several giant nearby plants. Tall, skinny purple flowers almost 10 times their height, wide and yet still tall pink flowers with many rows of petals extending downward from the middle. Flowering blue trees taller than any Kaleek had ever seen were also in the area, forming a small forest of sorts. As well, everything was tinted a light reddish hue.

Vassa appeared to also be captivated by the beautiful environment of the planet. All previous complaints were apparently abandoned as she looked around, similarly to Kaleek. "It's... amazing," Vassa said, careful to try not to cause any fires with her tail flame. "A bit cold, though."

It was cold, as well. At least, it was for her, what with her average body temperature of a toasty 80* Celsius, and the surrounding planet being a tropical 25* Celsius.

" _That's_ why I told you to put on those extra layers!" Kaleek replied, laughing a bit.

Vassa would've said something in reply before she felt a drop of water fall onto her bright red-orange scales.

Kaleek soon felt it as well, and the two looked behind them.

There was, of course, nothing there. Just more seemingly endless landscape.

"It's... raining," Vassa commented, in much the same fashion she'd done earlier.

"Yeah," Kaleek replied, looking up at the darkening overcast sky. "Yeah, it is."

Kaleek then led Vassa a few feet to the right, underneath one of the massive petals of the previously mentioned large pink flowers.

After a few minutes, the rain really started pouring down, making the two feel pretty good since they were out of the way of the storm.

"Well, what are we gonna do _now_?" Vassa asked.

"I mean, we _could_ just go back to the ship," Kaleek mused. "But we've only been here a couple minutes, and it'll give us a bit of time to collect our thoughts."

Vassa nodded before staring off into the rain for another couple of minutes, before turning back to Kaleek. "...So you're... an alien?" She suddenly asked, not having had the chance to ask way earlier.

"I think that it's a fair assumption to say I'm an alien," Kaleek replied. "I'm guessing you just haven't really had the time to think about that yet?"

"Not really, no," Vassa answered truthfully. "It's just... kinda weird, finding out that your friend you met all the way back in middle school is an _alien_."

"Yeah, I'd probably be pretty weirded out by that, too," Kaleek responded.

The two then stopped to stare once more at the almost-entrancing rain for a little while. However, soon enough, Kaleek turned to ask Vassa something. "Do you still... I dunno, consider me your friend?"

Vassa looked at him. "Of _course_ I do. You helped me through a _lot_ in my freshman year, I probably couldn't've handled all that by myself."

"...But I'm an _alien_ ," Kaleek continued, cocking his head to the left a little. "I hid that from you for the _entire_ time we've known each other."

"Well, sometimes people just want to keep their secrets. I've got no problem with them," Vassa replied after looking forward again, her clawed hands tugging at her coat.

Kaleek raised his brow. "You have _no_ problem with secrets? None at all?"

"'Course I don't. There's no reason I should have a problem."

 _Huh, nobody acts like that about secrets back at Nonsu._ Kaleek thought.

With the conversation out for yet another time, Vassa began to think again. She pulled her knees up to her chest, her arms resting on top of them and her head sitting atop her arms. _My mom, my big brother... they're all dead by now. And my dad..._

Kaleek sharply turned to look at Vassa, hearing her sniffle a bit. "...You okay, Vassa?" He asked, his face showing concern for her.

"What do you think?!" Vassa erupted. "Everyone I've ever known or loved or cared about, every monument, every ounce of my hopes and dreams are all dead! Destroyed by those stupid fucking 'Gengars' or whatever! I never even got to..."

Kaleek, although severely taken aback by Vassa's sudden outburst, understood her feelings. "It's fine, it's fine, I understand-"

Vassa interrupted him. "It's not 'fine'! _Nothing's_ 'fine'! Don't act like you understand _my_ feelings!"

Kaleek felt hurt that his best friend would shout at him like that but tried his best not to show it. "Sorry, you're right. What... did you 'never get to do', anyway?"

Vassa's anger stalled upon her hearing Kaleek's question.

 _It was Vassa's 13th birthday, coincidentally a Thursday yet again._

 _As she slowly walked down the stairs to the living room, she expected to see her friends and relatives pop out, yelling "Surprise!" as they had done in birthdays past. However, even when she reached halfway down the stairs nothing happened. No movement whatsoever._

 _She was even more surprised when it didn't happen as she reached the bottom. Now slightly concerned, she stepped into the dining room, which the stairs led to, and into the living room._

 _She did see some relatives and her mother, but neither any cousins nor her dad was there._

 _They were all sitting on the rather large living room couch, their faces all showing no expression. As she approached, instead of their faces lighting up as she expected, nothing. If anything, they looked slightly sadder after noticing her._

 _"Hey, honey," Vassa's mother greeted. "You can sit on the chair if you want."_

 _So Vassa sat in the chair, which was to the left of the couch, both centered around a small coffee table. "Hi, mom!"_

 _"I don't really know how to put this, Vassa," Her mother told her before sighing. "So I guess I'll go the blunt way; he... died."_

 _Vassa nervously laughed, thinking it was some prank. "This... this is some birthday prank, right? I know you guys like doing that sometimes!"_

 _Her mother looked pained, hearing her daughter blow off what she said. "No... no, not this time. Someone attacked him last night while he was out smoking."_

 _Vassa still wanted to believe what she'd said, that it was all just some prank. But deep down, she knew that what they were saying was true. She had heard some weird noises out front last night but hadn't bothered to check on them._

Vassa backed away a bit, going back into the position she was in before the outburst. She wiped tears from her eyes. "It's nothing, okay."

Kaleek could tell that she was lying, but didn't exactly feel like pressing the issue much further. That was both because he knew she might not really like saying it, and he was quite intimidated by her at the moment. "...Alright then. Just know that if you want to tell me something, I'm always free."

Vassa then looked back at Kaleek, before scooting back over to him. She put her arms around him, hugging him in a not-too-gentle-but-not-too-hard way. "I just don't like talking about it much, okay?"

Kaleek nodded, and the two went back to staring at the still-pouring rain, Kaleek still being embraced by Vassa. "It's going to be getting darker, by the way. We should probably get back to the ship soon."

"Not right now," Vassa replied. "I just... wanna stay here a _little_ bit longer, if that's alright."

"Heh, don't worry, you're in the clear."


End file.
